Pentagon: Combat will open to women

Sgt. Vanessa Jones and her Female Engagement Team on patrol with infantrymen in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010. The Corps is considering whether women should be allowed to serve as riflemen.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Photo by Nelvin C. Cepeda, San U

Sgt. Vanessa Jones and her Female Engagement Team on patrol with infantrymen in Marjah, Afghanistan in 2010. The Corps is considering whether women should be allowed to serve as riflemen.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Photo by Nelvin C. Cepeda, San U

The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening more than 200,000 front-line military positions to American women for the first time, possibly even elite special-operations jobs such as Navy SEALs.

The changes, set to be announced today by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will not happen overnight.

The services must now develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official told The Associated Press.

Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force, may take longer.

The services will have until January 2016 to make a case that some positions should remain closed to women.

Reaction from Marine and Navy veterans around San Diego was mixed.

Some male combat veterans say that women have earned the right to fight. Others agree but at the same time voice concerns that inserting women into small tight-knit units could lead to problems.

“There’s capability clearly held by many women to do — physically and mentally — anything required in combat. Their loyalty and commitment are already proven,” said Jack Harkins, a Marine Corps combat veteran from Vietnam and chairman of the United Veterans Council of San Diego County.

Women comprise about 14 percent of the 1.4 million active military personnel. More than 280,000 women have been sent to Iraq, Afghanistan or to jobs in neighboring nations in support of the wars. Of the more than 6,600 who have been killed, 152 have been women.

This groundbreaking move to officially open more jobs to women overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting females from being assigned to smaller ground combat units.

The SEAL community, headquartered at the Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, is the last all-male part of the Navy, after submarine jobs were opened to women in 2010. In the Marines, infantry and reconnaissance jobs have been all-male.

Former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb said women are more than physically capable of doing special operations work, adding that elite units such as the Navy SEALs are more about mental tenacity than physical prowess.

“I had Olympic athletes in my class who could do amazing things physically. But they didn’t like the cold water and they quit because they weren’t mentally tough enough," he said.

But Webb, 38, said he thinks it will be disruptive to put women and men together in small, tight-knit units — which is how special operators usually work.

“If you have a six-person team and most of the guys are single, and you have a single female in the mix — chances are you are going to establish close relationships. And that can impair judgment. It’s like having your girlfriend in the field with you. Your decision-making becomes completely different.”

Former Navy SEAL and San Diego entrepreneur Brent Gleeson said that any woman who tries to join the elite ranks will have obstacles to overcome outside of the physical requirements.

“It’s going to be a major cultural challenge on both sides, for women to be able to become part of this culture and for men to accept it as a new reality,” said Gleeson, 36, adding, “I don’t think there will be a big influx of women trying out.”

Marine officer Zoe Bedell led a Camp Pendleton female engagement team in Afghanistan, which meant she and her team fought alongside male infantrymen while interacting with local women to bridge the cultural gap.

Bedell, now a 27-year-old reservist, was one of four women who sued the federal government last year to hasten the end of the combat ban.

On Wednesday, she was taken by surprise when she heard the news and said she was flooded with phone calls from friends, colleagues and the media all day.

“Hopefully, what it means is now (women) will be able to compete on their merit and be evaluated on how they perform and how they do certain jobs, rather than their gender,” she said. “That would be what we are aiming for — equality of opportunity.”

Officials briefed The Associated Press on the changes on condition of anonymity so they could speak ahead of the official announcement.

Panetta is taking this step in his final weeks as Pentagon chief and just days after President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech in which he spoke passionately about equal rights for all.

The new order expands the department’s action of nearly a year ago, when it opened about 14,500 combat positions to women, nearly all in the Army.

Panetta’s decision could open more than 230,000 jobs, many in Army and Marine infantry units, to women.

Under the 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. A brigade is roughly 3,500 troops split into several battalions of about 800 soldiers each. Historically, brigades were based farther from the front lines and they often included top command and support staff.

The necessities of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, propelled women into jobs as medics, military police and intelligence officers that were sometimes attached — but not formally assigned — to battalions.

So while a woman couldn’t be assigned as an infantryman in a battalion going out on patrol, she could fly the helicopter supporting the unit, or move in to provide medical aid if troops were injured.

And these conflicts, where battlefield lines are blurred and insurgents can lurk around every corner, have made it almost impossible to keep women clear of combat.

Still, it may not be an easy transition.

When the Marine Corps sought women to go through its tough infantry course last year, two volunteered and both failed to complete the course.

Staff writer Nathan Max and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

VOICES:

“The focus of our military needs to be maximizing combat effectiveness. The question here is whether this change will actually make our military better at operating in combat and killing the enemy, since that will be their job too. What needs to be explained is how this decision, when all is said and done, increases combat effectiveness rather than being a move done for political purposes. The idea that every combat mission and future conflict will mirror Iraq and Afghanistan is extremely naive and shortsighted.” — U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine

“‘Be all you can be’ is finally a reality for those women who train to serve in combat roles. This decision enables female service members to take their military careers to the Joint Chiefs. The Services will respond with their own plans but cannot question whether or not to move ahead with a timely and full consideration.” — U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego

“I think it’s an inevitable, predictable privilege that American women who want to serve in the uniform of their country will eventually do so in a very unrestricted and nearly unlimited degree, because there’s capability clearly held by many women to do, physically and mentally, anything required in combat. Their loyalty and commitment are already proven.” — Jack Harkins, Chairman United Veterans Council

“I think opening positions to merely say ‘we now let women in the infantry’ is a just a political move that will, in the future, hurt our service members. However, I believe if the individuals are qualified and if the standards remain high and are not lowered because of the sex of the service member, then they, men or women, should be allowed to participate in those job billets.” — UC San Diego student Richard Gilbert, a former Marine scout sniper who served in Iraq

“It’s something that I think has been a longtime coming. From my perspective, it was going to happen eventually. ... Overall, I’m for the lift of this ban, and I’m interested to see how it develops.” — Brent Gleeson, retired Navy SEAL

“We think this is going to have a positive impact on the military. It will help with recruitment and retention of qualified women, and it will ensure that the military is structured in a way that reflects the realities of the battlefield.” — Greg Jacob, policy director of the Service Women’s Action Network

“Equal opportunity to compete, that’s what this has been all about, and we’re moving in that direction,” — Zoe Bedell, Marine Corps reservist who served two deployments in Afghanistan